She remembers that sweet smell, you know the one, that freshly bathed and powdered baby smell. Oh, he doesn’t smell like that now but how could he? Even she knows that after a certain amount of time it would be impossible for him to smell like a brand new baby…still, he has a smell of his own that she finds comforting just knowing he is with her.

     Yesterday she dressed him in the cutest little blue denim shorts, a red and white checked shirt, dark blue socks and the “new” tennis shoes she'd bought last week from Wal-Mart. He was so adorable She wanted to take him visiting to show him off but it wasn’t possible because her husband, Rick, wanted her to finish painting the spare room she’d been putting off forever. He can be a real stickler about details like that so instead she put the baby in his swing and worked on getting the room done.

     When she finally completed the job she got the baby to bed and took the swing back down in the basement where it was kept now since Rick gets so upset when he sees she'd left the old thing just sitting in the living room.

     Having got that done she proceeded to make dinner. She felt pretty good about finishing the painting of the spare room and knew Rick would be pleased too so she decided on a special dinner to make the evening perfect. His all time favorite meal, Chili and Corn Bread.

    “Hey honey…I’m home,” Rick hollered as he came in the door.

    “I have a surprise for you tonight” was her answer as she walked up and wrapped her arms around his neck for a kiss.

    “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

    “I finally got the spare room painted and made your favorite dinner!” she said obviously pleased with herself.

     Stumbling around the kitchen trying to make coffee and get Rick’s breakfast the next morning Sarah wondered to herself how her husband managed to sleep like a rock each and every night. She, herself, had been up most of the night with a crying baby and it showed this morning. Must be a blessing men are just born with.

     As soon as Rick left for work the baby woke up crying. Time for his feeding too she thought as she went to prepare her nipples with the cleansing pads she’d picked up the other day. She got him from his bed and settled herself into a comfortable rocking chair in the living room to breast feed him.

     “Damn!” Rick grumbled to himself just before pulling off onto the highway on his way to work “How could I forget the wheelbarrow?” Turning around he thought he’d just slip into the basement through the outside door so he wouldn’t wake Sarah if she’d gone back to bed. He was aware of her getting up and down all night long and knew she was exhausted. She hadn’t slept well for a very long time.

     As quietly as he could Rick descended the stairs to the basement and looked around for the wheelbarrow. He finally spotted it way off in the far corner and walked over to it but as he reached to grab it something caught his eye. The old kitchen hutch had been flat against the wall when he’d brought it down after they remodeled the kitchen but now it was all jockeyed around and something was behind it. Pulling out the hutch Rick felt a stab shoot through his heart. The swing. Then something beyond that caught his eye. A baby bassinet, shoved way in the corner, with blankets piled high in it. He reached as far as he could without moving the hutch any further and got a hold of the corner of the bassinet and yanked it out. Now he was totally confused because inside of it there was dirt. “What the hell…?” he muttered to himself.

     He decided this was not something he could ignore no matter how much Sarah didn’t want to throw out the old baby things. He’d tried for so long now to be understanding and patient like the Psychiatrist said to but this was too much!

     When he got to the top of the stairs he turned toward the hall to enter the living room and that’s where he froze. There, sitting and rocking, was Sarah singing Lullabies and holding something all black and decayed to her breast.